Grilled cheese sandwich and pasta salad

Week 198 motherhood with 3 year 9 month old and 18 month old. 

June 27 to July 3, 2024:

• This week, I finally was able to get the 18 month old’s nails clipped!  She let me do it on her awake and voluntarily — which is the ideal way because we don’t always want to “trick” her or do it when she’s unconscious.  She completely understands what we say to her now and this time, she didn’t shake her head “no”.  She let me cut all of her toenails and fingernails save for 4 lol.  But then I eventually was able to cut the rest of them too.  Yay!
• The phase the 3 year old is in this week is watching the Party Freeze Dance music videos on YouTube on my phone.  We also put it on the TV screen to watch too.  The videos led to the “floor is lava” songs too.  I just let her watch a few.  We also watched one where a guy “dives” underwater to collect jewels and avoid sharks and stuff.  It was a new thing for her.  It’s one of those days when I was really tired and DH was working in the office that I was tired and just let them watch the TV for a bit.
• The 3 year old has been requesting the Party Freeze Dance videos at night time only.
• When she was watching the video and because it repeats “When I say ‘freeze’, you stop”, she told me that during the JTK incident, the word “stop” was what the teacher told her too.  So now I have more insight again as to what happened during the time she separated from me at JTK.  The teacher holding her must have told her to “stop” several times.  When I pressed her for more details, the 3 year old said she was done talking about it and only liked to talk about it a bit at a time.  Thus, this is still a trauma incident for her.  But at least she does open up to talk about it bit by bit with me.  It is a slow and long process filled with lots of patience.
• The 3 year old demands my attention more these days.  She will ask me to watch her or look at her while she does something.  She didn’t used to do this before.
• Whenever the kids are acting up, I ask DH to bring them outside to the deck for some fresh air and it works immediately for them to cool down.  The 3 year old tantrums when her sister touches her toys she’s playing with or touches her when passing by.  She has ferocious tantrums sometimes.
• During the last session of the Creative Chefs class in June, they had the kids make a grilled cheese sandwich and pasta salad.  I brought the younger kid and grandma this time too now that the basement was finally completed.  (Yay, finished renovations finally!)
• Again, the 3 year old didn’t really want to partake in doing the cooking parts herself and I helped her where she didn’t want to do things.  She also didn’t want to eat the finished product either.  We placed the sandwich and the pasta salad in her lunchbox where she enjoyed it later in the car.
• The facilitator invited the little one to make the items too.  To me and grandma’s surprise, she ate a huge cup of pasta salad and a quarter of the grilled cheese sandwich!  This is the first time I saw her eat so much in one sitting.  Grandma was afraid it was too much for her that she would puke.  Luckily, she was fine.  She definitely passed out nice and hard when we got to the car lol.
• An improvement was that during circle time dancing, the 3 year old didn’t need to be carried (I told her ahead of time) but instead stood next to me and I crouched down with her.  I told her that she doesn’t need to dance if she doesn’t want to but I will not be carrying her.  She completed that exercise at least.
• When we left, the 3 year old played in the sandbox within the school’s gates.  She had such a fun time.  They had buckets and sand accessories this time.  Once the little one joined us though, we were told by one of the teachers there that the sandbox was only for YMCA and that we couldn’t use it.  So we left.  Too bad.
• We have been enjoying a lot of outdoor water play this week again.  I am on the lookout for a second-hand water table so that the girls can play outside with a better water table.  Our current one leaks and isn’t meant for water play actually.
• The 3 year old was playing with the silicone suction toys again (dug them out from the family room) and picked out all of the green and yellow ones to create a “necklace”.  It was very creative.  She knows how to use the suction part of the toys now very well.
• The 18 month old requests for reading time more so than the 3 year old these days.
• The 18 month old was able to stack a few blocks together!  I’m sure Stories of Play would say this is a specific stage of block play reached.  Good job!
• The 3 year old asked for the chefs hat we got from one of the Creative Chefs classes this week and used it for play time.  She also liked to use it as a bag to hold items. 🤷‍♀️
• For our Canada Day celebration, we had lunch takeout with family at the SIL’s house.  The 3 year old was withdrawn and timid and sat on grandma’s lap.  She actually didn’t want to eat at first.  But then eventually I was able to feed her some food and she ate.  This thing about not wanting to eat with other people is a new thing for sure that we have to overcome…
• The 18 month old was fine.  After eating, she played with her cousins and aunt at the toy area.  We know we can leave her at a daycare/school setting for sure in the future.  She won’t have separation difficulties.
• The 3 year old and 18 month old “play” together more often now.  But it’s always hits and misses too.
• We had the Creative Chef standalone class back at the Markham main site for once (haven’t been here in months and I actually had a bit of anxiety about returning because I didn’t want to see the facilitators who were at the “incident”).  Luckily, the facilitators were all new ones.  Huh?  I was so surprised.  They have hired new staff?  Or these are staff in rotation that I have never seen before?  Either way, the two ladies were really kind and nice (nicer than the other ones we know from before).  They had the kids make summer spring rolls with chopped vegetables and mango using rice paper.
• The 3 year old only chose the carrots and mango (leaving out the lettuce, orange bell peppers, cucumbers, mint leaves).  She didn’t want to chop the items herself so I helped her.  Then we put the rice paper in warm water to soften it.  She was able to put all of the chopped items into the rice paper though where we rolled it up.  Again, she didn’t want to eat it there so we put it into her lunchbox.  She enjoyed the whole thing later at home herself.
• I liked that the summer spring rolls were a brand new item to make.  However, I really dislike how they make all of the kids wait so long each time.  They wait for everyone to arrive before starting (and there are always latecomers no matter what), wait for the kids to gather the ingredients from the table at the front one by one (takes so long for each table to go up), and when some kids are done early (like mine), they just keep waiting for the next step.
• What I did like though was that they had a much longer interactive circle time this time around than the other Creative Chefs classes at this location.  They sang interactive food-themed songs, read a book to the kids, did many dance songs together.  The program is from 1:30 to 3:30, but I think just 1.5 hours is enough.  They don’t need 2 hours for it if they don’t have any other toys or activities for the kids to play inside of the classroom.  At the other CC locations, they have books or toys out for the kids to play with before and after the cooking sessions.
• I previously gave my feedback to this location about the long wait times but it seems they don’t care or don’t think it’s an issue because clearly they are hosting the program in the same manner (too long of a wait time for the kids).
• The 18 month old likes to hold her own toothbrush to brush her teeth.  However, we always have to follow up and brush it because being this young, they don’t know how to brush their teeth properly.
• The 18 month old eats really well.  She can peel and eat an egg by herself.  She is “talking” more this week too.  She had some unexplained fever pop up over night and took some baby Tylenol.  She is good about taking it and doesn’t refuse.
• Whenever we refuse her something, the 18 month old will throw her head back and dramatically cry.  She actually does shed tears too.  It’s super dramatic though lol.